Blood Leverage
by Spikey44
Summary: Sequel to Unexpected Return. Damon Salvatore has survived a lot; Originals, zombies, his own angst, but this new trouble could be the end. Strange humans are stalking him, Stefan's a noble idiot, and who the hell is Meredith Sulez anyway?  D/E & ensemble.
1. Prologue: Death of a Salesman

**Blood Leverage**

_A/N: Hello everyone. This story is a sequel to my other TVD fic "An Unexpected Return". Both stories are slightly AU from the show, diverging from continuity from around episode 2:15. This story will follow the continuity of my previous story and make references to it, so it might be an idea to read "An unexpected Return" first. The timeline of "Blood Leverage" picks up about a year after Unexpected ended. Elena and Stefan are away at college and Damon is holding down the fort in Mystic Falls alone._

* * *

><p>Prologue: <em>Death of a salesman<em>

Zane Edgley parked his car down an abandoned slip road off the Old Fell's Road about fifty yards away from the turning leading down to the Salvatore property. He'd already scoped out the area and traffic along this road at this time of night was almost non-existent. Still on the off-chance anyone drove by, Zane made sure his car was far enough down the slip road that no one would see it from the main road. He grabbed a pocket flashlight from the glove compartment and started off through the woods toward the Salvatore place.

The intelligence he'd gathered stated that the building was undergoing a major refurbishment, something about renovating the former boarding house so the owners could rent it out as a corporate retreat and function centre. As Zane emerged from the edge of the woods and looked up at the building, scaffolding silhouetted in the moonlight like a spindly exoskeleton, Zane figured his intel was right on the money -and if it was right about the refurb it just might be about the rest too.

Zane flipped off his flashlight and skirted the boundary of the property grounds until he could make his approach up the long gravel driveway. He couldn't see any lights on in the front of the house, but he knew the target was home. He'd watched the guy wile away half the night at the Grill in town before driving home about an hour ago.

Zane had done his background checks on this guy. He had one younger brother currently in college out of state and no other family. He was also a creature of habit. He spent his weekdays either working with the town council or on the refurbishment. His evenings were spent at the Grill, sometimes drinking with a blond guy who taught at the local high school, sometimes alone, and then he came home, usually between the hours of eleven and midnight. Weekends he deviated from the routine slightly, every other week the mark would drove out of state to visit with his brother or some chick at the same college, other times he'd take business trips out of town. Apparently this guy was in real estate and owned a couple of high rent condominiums in Massachusetts and the mid-west.

What all this boiled down to was that the mark would be home completely alone right now. This was the moment Zane had been waiting for. Crunching up the drive Zane faltered for just moment as a security light flashed on above the boarding house door bathing him in blinding halogen luminance. The door to the property opened as Zane blinked back ugly dancing afterimages from the corners of his vision.

"This is private property: leave now," A man drawled lazily, "Before I kick your ass back to the womb."

The mark stood in the doorway. Or rather he lounged against the doorframe, arms folded over his chest with a half empty bottle of dark liquor, most likely scotch, dangling from one hand. Dazzled by the security light Zane couldn't clearly see the man's face but his voice sounded bored and just faintly hostile. For some reason Zane imagined that well fed tigers might sound like that, or an indolent lion out on the Savannah who couldn't be bothered to chase down the gazelle stupid enough to venture into his range.

"Mr Salvatore?" Zane cleared his throat and ignored the neck ruffling sense of unease creeping up his spine. "My name's Zane Edgley. Mayor Lockwood might have mentioned me?"

"Ugh, you've got to be kidding me," The mark growled under his breath and shifted away from the doorframe.

Now Zane was a pretty observant guy, it was part of the job, he'd also spent years studying body language, and right now the guy in front of him was giving off some pretty powerful 'back off' signals. Still Zane hadn't come all the way out here, and spent the last week gathering a dossier on this town and this guy in particular just to back off now. He pasted his best, 'hail fellow well met' smile on his face and launched into his pre-prepared spiel.

"I'm sorry for the late call. I know it's not exactly visiting hours, but you're a difficult man to pin down." Or at least he was all the times Zane had tried to corner him during the day. It was weird but this guy seemed to have an almost preternatural ability to disappear just when Zane felt sure he had him cornered. "I was really hoping I could talk to you. Mayor Lockwood was insistent that you were the guy to call about my particular line of work."

"Paranormal investigation," the mark, Salvatore, sounded more bored by the minute, yet his body language, relaxed and easy, but deceptively so, screamed suppressed violence. "You think there are vampires in Mystic Falls." Zane wasn't sure but he thought he saw the faint flash of teeth, a sardonic half-smile, half-snarl, appear and disappear like magic on the mark's face.

Salvatore stepped away from the doorway then and Zane had a chance to catalogue all the odd little things that didn't quite add up about the mark as he stepped off the front stoop. Without a doubt Salvatore was good looking and he moved with the easy confidence of someone who knew just how far his looks could take him. Slim built and not particularly tall, his short dark hair was ruffled and he wore a mask of bored nonchalance on his attractive features like models wore designer clothes. Yet despite the expensive cut of his jeans and pure silk shirt there was something about Salvatore, an undercurrent of something rougher than his manicured appearance, which belied the illusion of carefree playboy. Salvatore swung his liquor bottle lazily in one hand, and it was that slow pendulum-like motion that set Zane's teeth on edge. He had the feeling this man was assessing him, the way a cat watched a field mouse, waiting to see if it would try and bolt or simply roll over and die.

"Mr Salvatore," Zane smiled through his teeth and did his best to ignore the warning calls from his lizard brain to run and run fast. "I know there are vampires in Mystic Falls." He paused for a beat, as was his usual practice. "And so do you."

Despite the suspicion that this mark wasn't the easy prey he was used to Zane couldn't help the slight quiver of excitement that crept over him now. This was his favourite part of the con after all; the moment when the mark twitched, that 'oh-shit' moment, as Zane tended to think of it. This was the moment Zane lived for, because like a magic key, it opened all the doors he needed to get what he wanted. He waited in silent anticipation, but Salvatore didn't do anything except lift the bottle to his lips and take a long swig.

"Prove it." He said flatly.

Zane was too practiced at this gig to let his surprise, or wariness of Salvatore, ruin his performance. He was already continuing with his pre-rehearsed sales pitch before his mind caught up with his mouth.

"It's pretty obvious to a seasoned investigator like myself. Mountain lion attacks in a region with no indigenous big cat species? A higher than average missing person rate for a town of this size; the sheer number of unexplained events in this county, and all occurring in a short space of time? Mr Salvatore really, it's palpably obvious that this town is beset by a supernatural and malign element."

Zane paused again, practiced and smooth, to allow what he'd just said to sink in. It never ceased to amaze him how these small town folks could be so stupid as to think that no one would notice what went on in their creepy, insular little towns. Hell Mystic Falls had so many of the text book indicators of supernatural activity that Zane had at first thought it had to be a hoax. Now however he was beginning to see Mystic Falls as a windfall, a veritable goldmine Zane could not wait to exploit.

"I'm sure you've been managing as well as you can against the scourge of undead but, and I say this with the utmost respect, I would like you to consider what I, as a professional paranormal expert, could offer you, and this town, in regards my expertise..."

"I was right," Salvatore interrupted him right before he could get to the good part - the part that involved his hourly rates. "You are a moron."

"Mr Salvatore," Zane began again, still smooth, still cool, still collected despite the fact that those little warning bells were ringing very loudly now. "I assure you that..."

He didn't get to finish because he suddenly realised Salvatore was no longer standing five feet in front of him. Zane blinked, opened his mouth - and something grabbed him from behind. One vice like arm clamped around his upper chest as a savage voice, smelling of scotch, sneered in his ear.

"I am _so_ dumping your body behind the porno theatre on route sixteen."

Strong hands grasped Zane's head. Then there was a sharp, echoing crack, and a brilliant flash of pain, like a firework exploding through every nerve in his body, and Zane Edgley was dead before his body hit the driveway.


	2. Chapter One: With friends like these

Chapter one: _With friends like these..._

Ric was loading the dishwasher after dinner at the Gilbert house when he heard the doorbell ring. Jenna, who was rinsing the dishes off in the sink before handing them over to Ric frowned and glanced at the wall clock.

"Are you expecting anyone?" She asked carefully as she glanced over to the window filled with the solid darkness of night. It had been over a year since Jenna had finally been brought into the loop about vampires and the things that went bump in the night, but considering how less than ideal her induction into Mystic Falls secret night life had been, she was still a little guarded and skittish.

Ric simply shook his head and closed the dishwasher door as Jenna pulled off her pink washing up gloves, still frowning and still tense. It was sort of sad that it never crossed Ric's mind that the caller might just be a neighbour asking to borrow a cupful of sugar. Sad, but smart; it took a certain amount of balls and arrogance to live in Mystic Falls knowing full well that the town was a magnet for weirdness, but that was no excuse for stupidity.

"I'll get it," Jeremy called as he bounded down the stairs.

Ric reached the hallway threshold just as Jeremy let Damon in. At his back Ric felt Jenna stop short at the sight of the vampire. For the most part, after enough time to get her head around everything, Jenna had mostly accepted Damon and Stefan as people she knew who just happened to also be vampires, but she was still a little wary of both of them.

"Hey," Ric greeted the older Salvatore a little cautiously. Damon didn't call at the Gilbert house much, and if he did it was usually when Elena was home from college. So it was a little odd for him to be calling at all let alone after dark. This, Ric figured, meant that something was wrong.

"Need your help," Damon said shortly glancing around the Gilbert main entrance distractedly before his eyes settled on Jenna and he winced. "To do something that in no way involves breaking and entering or corpse disposal." He added awkwardly.

"Corpse disposal?" Jenna took a step back into the sanctuary of the dining room before forcibly making herself hold her ground. She really was trying but Damon had a tendency to spook her – turning up after dark and saying things like that really didn't help. Ric couldn't decide if Damon was just being his usual dickish self or if, while attempting to _not_ be a dick, he was actually being more of a dick than he would be if he was just his usual self.

"What did you do?" He asked tiredly. He'd learned pretty early on in his odd relationship with Damon that bitching about his tendency to kill first, regret later was pointless and counterproductive (not to mention dangerous). Instead it was better to just go with it and make the best of a situation already well and truly pear-shaped.

Damon shrugged, a barely there roll of his shoulders in his habitual leather jacket. "You owe me ten bucks actually." He said apropos of nothing. "That guy Edgley, the one sniffing around Liz and Carol...I told you he was a moron."

"Edgley?" Ric frowned. "Wait, you mean that guy who claimed to be a paranormal investigator? He wanted to meet with the council." Realisation hit Ric like a sledgehammer to his brain. "_Damon_. Tell me you didn't kill him."

"Fine I won't." Damon gave him a bored look. "I need someone with a pulse to go check out his room at the motel he was staying in. The guy was fishy. I want to know if he was working alone or if I've got to go chase down his buddies."

"Why can't you get in?" Jeremy asked curiously. "I thought motels were okay for you guys to get into."

Damon shook his head. "That's the thing. Edgley's dead. Even if he'd stayed in that room long enough to build a threshold barrier it should have disappeared after I killed him. But I swung over to his room earlier and couldn't get a foot through the door."

"You killed a man," Jenna was staring at Damon as if she couldn't quite believe the guy she'd once played Pictionary with, the same guy who treated her niece like royalty when Elena was home from college, could be so callous and casual about murder. For that matter she couldn't believe Jeremy and Ric were so casual about it either.

"Yep," Damon glanced at Jenna and when he saw the slightly horrified look on her face he rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, _vampire._" He pointed at his chest. "He was a threat. And he _annoyed_ me. Of course I killed him." Then, when that wasn't mitigating the situation at all he sighed and tried a different tact. "It was quick. It's not like I ate him or anything. I just snapped his neck. It was mostly painless." Damon glanced over at Jeremy. "Back me up here. Neck snaps don't hurt, right?"

"Damon." Ric snapped in clear warning shooting a covert look at Jenna.

"What?" Damon looked at him blankly then his expression creased in understanding. "Oh right. Ex-ney on the neck-snap-ay; got it."

Jenna knew all the important facts about doppelgangers, faux curses, witches and vampires, but it had been agreed that some of the less salient points, like for instance the fact that Damon had once snapped Jeremy's neck, should be left out of the narrative. Mostly because no one wanted to revisit that mess if they could help it, and as Jeremy seemed to have forgiven Damon and Damon for his part was a hell of a lot more stable now (or so everyone had thought), it just hadn't seemed worth it.

"Look," Damon said straining for patience. "I've dealt with these paranormal guys before. They're," He paused and tried to decide on the best way to express his point, "Really, _really_ annoying." He said finally before rushing onwards as Jenna opened her mouth, no doubt to point out that killing people just because they were annoying was not a justifiable defence for homicide. "Edgley knew something. He was a threat to me _and_ Stefan. He came sniffing around _my_ home. What was I supposed to do, wait for him to call up the mob and light the torches before I did anything?" Damon flapped his hands in exasperation. "Been there, done that, didn't like it the first time."

"He was a human being. He could have had a family." Jenna argued back.

She'd been told by Ric and even Elena to be careful around Damon, to remember that while Stefan felt bad about being a vampire Damon generally didn't. She'd filled in enough of the blanks in what Ric and Elena had told her to know that of the two Salvatores Damon was the more dangerous and the more predatory, but still...he was Ric's friend, he was Elena's...well, she wasn't sure what the two of them were doing but she suspected that love or serious like was involved, and more to the point, as much of a dick as Damon Salvatore was, he was a familiar dick, one she'd started to consider a fairly permanent fixture in the life of her niece. It was difficult to believe the cold blooded killer act even when he was working it for all his worth. She eyed him shrewdly, feeling safe in doing so with Ric strategically placed between her and the vampire.

"What's really going on?" She asked him. "There's more than you're telling us." Something else occurred to her. "Do Elena and Stefan know about what you've been doing?"

Damon cocked his head to the side and looked at Jenna intently with the remote, cool eyes of some large, sleek hunting animal, a jaguar maybe. "I liked you better when you were clueless." He told her in the bored flat tones of someone who was rapidly losing patience.

Jenna bristled. "I don't want you in my house right now." She told him falling back on a strategy she employed when the supernatural stuff got too much for her. "Please leave."

So I can call Elena. She added silently in her head. There was still a lot Jenna didn't fully understand about the whole vampire/witch/werewolf secret society thing her niece, nephew, and sort-of boyfriend were involved in, but if there was one thing she did know it was that even the mention of Elena's name carried major weight with Damon. Elena also seemed to have the best handle on Damon's character, and while that worried Jenna in all kinds of ways, she'd been forced to accept that there wasn't much she could do about it.

Damon sighed and glanced at Ric reaching back to open the front door. "You in or do I have to find someone else?" He asked still in a bad mood and happy to share.

Ric hesitated. There really were a great many things he'd prefer to do than bury bodies and loot motel rooms with Damon right now –but on the other hand if he was the one aiding and abetting at least he'd be able to answer all the questions Elena and possibly Stefan would fire his way when they inevitably found out Damon had fallen off the no-killing wagon.

"I'll help." Jeremy said, sounding eager, before Ric could say anything.

"Like hell you will," Jenna snapped, pouncing instantly.

"Aunt Jenna," Jeremy began patiently. "It's not like I haven't done this stuff before."

"I don't care what you did before." Jenna ground out. "I'm your legal guardian and I'm not going to hand-wave the fact that you're out at night committing felonies –not when I actually _know_ about it beforehand. Damn it, Jeremy. Don't you have finals to study for?"

"I already did," Jeremy snapped back. "My grades are good. I'm going to graduate in a few weeks. Everything's cool at school."

"That's not the point." Jenna threw up her hands. "What if you get caught breaking into some motel room? What if you get caught with a dead body?"

"Then Damon will compel the cops. Seriously Aunt Jenna, it's cool. I'm a Gilbert. I need to know how to do this stuff so I can join the Council and keep the town safe like Dad did."

Even Damon gave Jeremy an incredulous look at this leap in (non)logical argument, though the vampire was by now smirking as well. Jenna just stared at Jeremy for one long moment before pointing up the stairs.

"Okay, that's it. Go to your room." She turned to glare at Damon. "And you – just go before I decide to tell the cops about this Edgley guy's murder myself."

Damon's smirk widened. "I changed my mind. You're feistier now you're not getting compelled to self-harm every other week." He looked at Ric and winked, "So much better than Isobel."

"Let's just go already." Ric said and shoved Damon out of the door. Damon gave him an aggrieved look as if he had no idea why Ric would be pissed with him and twisted around to twinkle his fingers at Jenna and roll his eyebrows flirtatiously.

"Goodnight Jenna."

"Go to hell Damon." Jenna crossed her arms over her stomach, looking pissed.

"I'll be back in a couple of hours." Ric told Jenna who nodded and mouthed 'be careful' to him as Damon bounded jauntily off the front porch. Ric pulled closed the Gilbert front door and followed Damon down to where he'd parked his Camero on the curbside.

"You just couldn't help yourself, could you?" He groused as Damon pulled away from the curb. He glanced over to the vampire, who, if he was any judge, was absolutely seething, hence the enhanced dickishness on display. "You realise Jenna will call Elena and tell her all about this, right?"

"You realise I don't care," Damon snarked back running a stoplight as they hit a crossroads.

Ric gave him a measured look. "Right," He murmured not believing that for a minute. "You going to tell me what this is really about? Because there is no way that stunt you pulled back at the house isn't going to come back and bite you."

Damon didn't say anything for a long moment. The streetlights rippled across his face painting phospur glowing stripes and banded shadow over his profile. The play of light and dark emphasised the tension in the muscles of his neck and shoulders, the tight line of his lips. Still silent Damon reached out to open the glove compartment. He pulled out a battered manila file folder and half threw it into Ric's lap.

"See for yourself."

Ric opened the file, inside were a number of papers, some word processed and some hand written notes he couldn't read in the dark interior of the car. There were also a collection of printed, blown up black and white photos. These were easier to make out than the typed pages, especially when he held the pictures up to the light coming in from the street-lighting. The first one was of Damon and Ric himself, sitting at the bar at the Grill. The trio of pictures underneath were of places in Mystic Falls, such as the woods and the Old Fell's Road where bodies had been discovered. Including the hikers torn apart by werewolves and the victims of the zombie infestation Mystic Falls had suffered that one wild weekend over a year ago. Still it was the series of glossy photos at the bottom of the pile that tipped Ric off as to why Damon was in full 'salt and burn' attack mode.

They were pictures of Elena and Stefan.

"Well shit," Ric whistled through his teeth. Flipping through the pictures he realised that only one was actually of Elena. It was a large close up picture taken in what looked like a coffee shop. Elena had head down and appeared engrossed in a large text book while a frothy cappuccino sat at her elbow. The rest of the photos however were of Stefan; Stefan at college, Stefan carrying his books under his arm to his car; Stefan in what appeared to be the same coffee shop Elena had been photographed in.

"These weren't taken in Mystic Falls." Ric said carefully. Damon's relationship with Stefan was never exactly comfortable. They had moments of relative peace but they also had moments of vicious animosity, but regardless of any of that though, Damon was still very protective of his brother in a bizarre sort of way. Ric knew that something like this would set those protective instincts in Damon going full tilt.

"It looks like these were taken on their campus." He added glancing over at Damon who was still disturbingly silent. "Did Edgley take these? Was he stalking you and your brother?"

"I don't know." Damon swung the car into the driveway of a medium priced motel. "I found that shit in Edgley's car. I called Stefan but he's being pissy and not answering me."

"Ah," Ric almost smiled as the pieces clicked together in his mind. "So you riled up Jenna because you know that she's probably calling Elena right now. Elena will end up telling Stefan that you killed someone...and Stefan will call you to find out what the hell is going on." Ric shook his head. "You know people would trust you more if you didn't pull stunts like this so often."

Damon pulled the car into a parking spot in the motel lot. "This is it. Number twenty-eight." He said not answering Ric but not denying his assertion either which was pretty much as good as an admission where Damon was concerned.

"So what's the real reason you can't get in?" Ric asked as they approached the marked door along the concrete portico.

"Magic," Damon said shortly, "Some ugly-ass talisman thing hanging on the wall. Works like a normal threshold barrier."

"If it's magic how do you know it won't stop me from entering too?" Ric asked curiously.

"I don't," Damon smirked shortly. "That's what we're here to find out." He paused just before putting the key card through the reader. "I don't pull stunts." He added harking back to Ric's previous point without warning and sounding sullen.

Ric gave Damon a rather eloquent look but because he didn't want to fight with the vampire when he was clearly itching for an excuse to inflict grievous violence on someone all he said was, "Duly noted."

Damon swiped the card through the reader and waited for the light to switch from red to green before he opened the door. The door swung open and he stepped back to give Ric room. They both peered into the dark interior. Ric's night vision wasn't the greatest but it looked to him like any other generic motel suite. There were two twin beds, a TV cabinet and a door leading off to a small bathroom. The room was vacant and clean. There was nothing to say it had been used in weeks. There certainly wasn't any magical talisman hanging from any of the walls –at least not that Ric could see.

"You're kidding me." Damon swore then and shoved Ric out of the way pushing one foot forward before storming into the empty room. The vampire turned a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees on the spot before throwing open the en-suite door and poking his head in. "Damn it." Damon thumped his fist into the wall near the bathroom door, thankfully not hard enough to punch right through.

"So I'm guessing this wasn't what the room looked like when you were here earlier?"

Damon gave him a truly nasty look just before he bent down to look under the neatly made beds. "Don't just stand there – help me search the room."

Ric sighed and flipped the light switch on as he entered. Ten minutes later, after they had searched the empty room three times and confirmed that yes, even the Gideon Bible had been taken from the bedside cabinet, Ric decided enough was enough. He sat down on one of the beds and watched as Damon paced like a bear with a head cold.

"So, at least we know Edgley had accomplices. Someone must have cleared out the room before we could get here." Ric frowned, "Which means someone probably knows you killed Edgley."

"It sure looks that way." Damon flared his eyes wide and bared his teeth in something that was most assuredly not a smile.

Ric just nodded getting that sinking feeling he'd come to associate with Mystic Falls particular brand of trouble. He watched as Damon started pacing again.

"Damn." Ric raked his fingers through his hair worriedly. "Someone set you up."


	3. Chapter Two: Complicated men

Chapter Two: _Complicated men_

"Thanks Jenna...no I'm glad you did." Elena sighed into the phone, brow stitched in worry. "I was planning on coming home anyway. There's got to be a reason. Damon wouldn't...he just wouldn't." Elena stared down at the counterpane of her bed, the fingers of her free hand kneading the cotton as she listened to her aunt. "Goodnight Jenna."

Disconnecting the call with Jenna Elena immediately hit speed dial to call Damon. She listened in increasing annoyance as the call was shunted instantly to voicemail. "It's me. Call me when you get this. I mean it Damon." Huffing out a breath she disconnected this call too and threw her phone onto the end of the bed.

Sinking down onto her pillows Elena turned her head towards the framed picture sitting on her night table behind her alarm clock and I-pod charger. The picture had been taken on her eighteenth birthday earlier in the year. They'd had the party at the Salvatore house. Elena didn't actually remember when the picture had been taken and she definitely didn't remember jumping on Damon's back while wearing a pink felt cowgirl hat but apparently she had, and she'd done so just in time to have the moment immortalised in a photograph for eternity too. Despite the embarrassment factor Elena had kept the picture and framed it because the photo actually caught one of those rare real smiles on Damon's face. In fact she thought Damon had been laughing as it was taken. Despite the myriad of smirks, sneers, and crocodile smiles he had in his arsenal Elena had come to realise that Damon rarely let himself laugh. So when he did the moment was always special.

Picking up the picture Elena tapped her fingers over that smile. The last year had been as different from the one prior as night from day. If her senior year of high school had been marked by the looming threat of death and complete disaster then her freshman year in college had been so normal Elena had started to feel like an imposter in someone else's life. In fact it had all been so normal she'd spent the first semester on tenterhooks waiting for something awful to happen simply because crisis had become her normal and normal had become weird and unsettling. Stefan had told her that feeling that way was normal, sort of like a soldier coming home from war and needing time to reacclimatise to peace.

Of course now she was nearing the end of her freshman year in college and had fully embraced just being a regular college girl and not a sacrificial lamb or a mystical doppelganger, or even a girl who dated dead guys with fangs, and she wasn't thrilled with the idea that her happy normal life was about to go down the drain. Not that it mattered. Elena knew that she'd built her 'normal' on the backs of the people who had fought tooth and nail to keep her alive last year and like a house of cards built on sand, if one of those emotional pillars started to crumble her whole world would fall too. There was no one who better exemplified the scaffolding her life was built on than Damon. So it was bitterly fitting he'd be the one to bring the whole edifice of 'normal' tumbling down around her ears

Last year, after a whole bunch of weirdness Elena did her best not to think about all that much, Damon had left Mystic Falls. At the time she'd been sure he'd gone for good. When Damon had walked away from her life she'd been bereft, like she'd felt when her parents died. That's when she'd realised all the pretty rationalisation in the world wouldn't save her. She loved Damon and she needed him. It really was as simple and as tragic as that.

Except that it hadn't been all that simple after all.

Damon had come back eventually but things had still been complicated. She and Stefan had unfinished business between them, and she and Damon had basically decided to stay friends. Damon would turn up at her home to cook meals for her, Jenna, and Jeremy. He'd flirt and tease and annoy her and she'd pout, snipe, and throw cushions at his head. They had fun and things were great.

When Elena had left for college, she'd left knowing that even if she was technically single she was most definitely attached in a purely emotional sense, and she made sure Damon knew that too. She knew it worried Damon that she and Stefan were attending the same college (they'd applied to the same campus when they were still together) but he'd seemed okay with it. He'd seemed okay with a lot of things over the last year; calmer, steadier, way more stable than she'd ever known him, and Elena had really hoped that this meant he was finally happy.

Now she wondered if he'd just been faking happy for her benefit. The thought scared her. The thought that he was killing again terrified her. Part of the reason she'd held so tightly to the 'just really, really good friends (with bucket loads of UST)' rule between her and Damon was because she knew if she let herself fall all the way for him she'd sink so deep into the feeling she'd never see daylight. Falling madly, deeply, in love with a quasi-reformed homicidal maniac was so not a smart play. She'd tried to protect herself because she'd realised if Damon went off the deep end again – and god knows he'd done that before – he might just take her with him.

Now, holding the framed photograph against her chest and blinking back tears she refused to shed, Elena figured that all her precautions had been for nothing. If Damon had started killing again, if he'd regressed, or lost control or...or something had happened that made him give up on all the incredible progress he'd made over the last two years, then none of her restraint would matter because it would devastate her all the same.

"There's a reason," she whispered not sure why she was speaking aloud. "There has to be a reason."

A sharp rap on her door almost gave Elena a heart-attack. She sprang up from the bed still clutching the picture frame to her chest. She looked at her digital clock on the nightstand. The display flicked from 21:59 to 22:00 while she watched.

"Who is it?" She called, suspicious. Elena shared a house just off campus with two other girls, both older than she was. It was unusual for a freshman to live outside the dorms but as dormitories fell under the same category of temporary residence as hotels and motels Elena hadn't felt safe living in a place where any random vampire could just break into her room without invitation. At least in a rented house, owned by a living person, she had some safety from the less normal side of her life.

"It's me, Meredith." One of her housemates called and Elena instantly relaxed.

"Meredith sorry I was..." she began as she opened the door to let the other girl in. Meredith Sulez was a second year studying history and anthropology (the same as Stefan) but she took an elective in world literature along with Elena and they got along very well. Meredith was also a brunette with dusky skin and deep dark eyes, built less delicately and more athletically than Elena herself, but still the similarities between them made people joke they could be sisters (Elena tended not to find those jokes all that funny, especially after the whole doppelganger thing).

"I didn't mean to bother you," Meredith was saying in her husky, low voice (her phone sex voice as Damon had dubbed Meredith's unique smoky tones after one memorable occasion when Meredith had answered Elena's cell when she'd left it in the communal kitchen). "I just wondered if you were done with Eduardo Galeano's 'Mirrors'? It's okay if you're not. I can just write my paper on something else..." she hurried to add when Elena just blinked at her blankly.

"No," Elena jumped into action as Meredith turned for the door. She lunged across her room to her cluttered writing desk and dug out the book, "Here...uhm, sorry about all the post-its."

Meredith flashed her a smile full of strong white teeth. "Are you sure you don't still need it?"

"Positive." Elena smiled. "I really didn't end up using the book much for my paper. I should have told you I was done. Sorry."

"Elena, are you okay?" Meredith frowned gently, the expression sitting beautifully on her broad face. Meredith had confided in Elena that her mother was half Latino and half Cherokee Indian and Elena always thought that the Cherokee shone through in Meredith's bold features. "You look...upset."

Elena opened her mouth, and it was pretty indicative of just how upset she was that she almost just up and said 'I'm worried that my sort-of-boyfriend-come-soulmate has turned homicidal again and I really don't know what to do about it.' Instead she just pressed her lips together firmly and offered Meredith a wavering smile.

"It's nothing. I'm fine. Really."

Meredith nodded vaguely, and almost distractedly ran her finger over the top of the book.

"Meredith – are you okay?" It was Elena's turn to look at her friend in concern. Meredith was a very private person; confident but reserved, kind but not that outgoing, a lot like Stefan now Elena thought about it. Just like Stefan Meredith didn't tend to admit to problems either. The other girl's dark eyes, a much darker brown than Elena's own warm chocolate, flashed up to her face and then settled on the picture frame Elena had forgotten she was still clutching to her chest.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Meredith said suddenly. "You don't have to answer...but I was with Stefan earlier tonight –we were studying in the library - and he mentioned that he was having problems with his brother." Meredith arched a perfect dark eyebrow and nodded her chin towards the picture Elena clutched in her arms. "Are you sure he's worth it?"

"What?" Elena blinked and almost reared back. "Meredith what are you talking about?"

"Damon." The other girl looked at her calmly with those steady dark eyes. "It's none of my business and I don't doubt that Stefan has his own bias, but what he's told me about Damon…" Meredith sighed and shook her head. "No. This isn't my place. I'm sorry Elena. Really." Meredith turned to the door and Elena caught her arm, stopping her from leaving.

"What has Stefan been saying?" Elena demanded, something inside her quivering in anticipation of the anger she was sure she'd soon be venting on the younger Salvatore.

Meredith looked from Elena's face to the hand holding her arm for a moment, her face expressionless. Then she sighed again and nodded once, a swift jerk of her chin. "Nothing bad; honestly Elena it's just me." She smiled lopsidedly. "Everything I hear about Damon just reminds me of a guy I used to know." Meredith looked suddenly sad and it was her turn to act defensively, clutching the book to her chest as her strong fingers tapped against the spine. "This guy...He could light up a room just by walking through a door. He had a smile to break hearts and, when he was good, he was my everything, passionate, fierce, devoted and just...beautiful."

Elena could hear her own heart thumping irregularly in her ears as she swallowed dryly around the tightness in her throat. "You were in love with him...this guy."

Meredith smiled caustically. "Oh yes." Her dark eyes looked long and hard into Elena. "Alessandro, he could have been an angel, but the devil had his number. I don't know why Elena, but Alessandro...there was something in him, something broken or twisted, and it was so warped and angry it made him into something no one could love." Meredith turned her gaze downward to the floor. "The second time his anger put me in hospital with a broken jaw and two broken ribs I realised that the good in him wasn't worth fighting for, not when the devil in him could kill me."

"God," Elena reached out to touch Meredith's arm. "I'm so sorry."

Meredith shifted so she could clasp her own hand over Elena's. "I didn't tell you this for sympathy, or even because I think your Damon is anything like Alessandro...but I...I just worry. Complicated men, in a way they make you want to love them, but love doesn't change the nature of a man. I don't want anyone to get hurt like I did."

"I'm sorry for what you went through," Elena told Meredith sincerely squeezing her hand. "Really I am. And I truly appreciate that you told me but..."

"But you don't need me butting into your life with my horror stories," Meredith smiled easily and gently pulled her hand free. "Especially when I don't know Damon and what I do know about him are second-hand stories and accounts from someone with an obvious bias." Her smile grew wider still as she turned for the door. "Don't worry Elena. I know you're not some silly girl who lets herself be used by a man. I shouldn't have said anything at all."

"Meredith," Elena said as the other girl was half way out of her door. "You weren't a silly girl. Loving someone is never wrong even when it doesn't work out. Alessandro was the one who was wrong for hurting you."

Meredith smiled then, a sharp edged smile. "Yes." She agreed in her rich, smoky voice. "Yes he was." She slipped out of the door, pulling it closed behind her. "Goodnight Elena; pleasant dreams."

"'Night," Elena murmured deep in thought as her bedroom door closed behind her.

Meredith's odd confession had disturbed Elena and she'd already been plenty upset from the phone call with Jenna. She thought it was very, very unlikely she'd be having any kind of pleasant dreams tonight. Right now sleeping at all seemed hugely unlikely. Elena had Salvatores on the brain and that never equated to a restful night. On the flip side she fully intended to pay both brothers back for every second of lost sleep they caused her; starting tomorrow with Damon.

* * *

><p>Damon got back home just after eleven. He was mostly functioning on auto-pilot and his only real conscious thoughts revolved around the contents of his new wet bar and just how quickly he could drink it dry. Of course as soon as he opened the front door and found the fat, bubble wrap enforced brown envelope waiting for him on the floor of the entranceway Damon realised pretty swiftly that his plan to drink his problems away was just going to have to wait. Straining his senses he couldn't detect any signs of life in the house but he'd been fooled before. Moving cautiously he made a slow and methodical search of the house, including the basement and Stefan's attic room, before returning to retrieve the envelope.<p>

He split the seal and poured out the contents onto the coffee table in the parlour kicking his feet up and twisting the cap off a bottle of bourbon. He was immensely _un_surprised to discover yet more glossy photographs inside. These pictures were much like the set he'd found in Edgley's cars, some of them were even duplicates of photos he'd already seen, presumably to drive home the fact that Edgley either hadn't taken the originals or that whoever he had been working with had copies.

This particular set appeared to be comprised of a rather artsy black and white shot taken using a super zoom lens, of him standing in his back yard watching the contractors landscape the gardens with a drink in his hand. There was another of him about to enter the Grill and a further couple of shots of Stefan living his boring 'I'm a totally normal college student with an over-dependence on hoodies and pensive frowns' existence. These photos were not incriminating (no naked romps caught on Polaroid or unfortunately timed neck-nibbling to warrant some juicy blackmail). They were just plain boring. There was no hint of anything unusual (beyond his alcoholism, but seriously, who in this town didn't know about that already?). There sure as hell wasn't anything in this batch or the last that screamed out 'I'm a vampire, stake me now' and Damon had to admit he really wasn't sure what the point of all this was.

He'd been blackmailed before. After a hundred and forty-seven years he'd experienced just about every kind of extortion known to man – either as perpetrator or victim – and so far whoever was playing with him had missed one fundamental point intrinsic to all good blackmail campaigns.

They'd forgotten to actually blackmail him.

Damon checked the envelope, tipping it upside down and peering inside but no vervain mixed with anthrax powder poured out and there was no cute message stitched together with newspaper letters telling him to leave a million dollars under a park bench at midnight or the pictures went to the press hidden inside. It was just a collection of boring black and white photographs. The whole thing was stupid and…irritating.

Damon sighed, took a swig from his bottle and tilted his head against the back of the couch. He wasn't thrilled that someone had obviously broken into his home to leave the envelope where he could find it, but he was hardly whimpering into his bourbon either. He'd had a malevolent witch-ghost home invader trap him in the house to starve before now, he'd been tortured by trespassing werewolves in this very parlour. He'd kept an indestructible Original lying around in his basement with just a letter opener and some tree dust to keep him down. A junk mail campaign hardly compared. Unless the whole campaign was designed to irritate him to the point where he snapped and just killed everyone in town - because that could work. In fact the idea had definite merit.

He was in a snapping sort of mood. He had been for a while now. He wasn't even sure why, because before Edgley's arrival a few weeks back there hadn't been any doom, gloom, or catastrophe on the horizon to otherwise blot his perfectly dull domesticated lifestyle; which was possibly the whole problem. Boredom had always been one of his more -destructive –vices.

Giving up on the envelope and its inexplicable content Damon fished his phone from his back pocket and eyed the display. He'd already listened to the voicemail from Elena and decided that he _so_ didn't want to fight with her tonight. He didn't trust what he might say if he called her now. He was feeling raw inside his head. He just didn't have the patience or fortitude to deal with her disappointment. Tomorrow he'd call her, tomorrow they'd fight about actions and consequence, and what constituted justifiable homicide, but tonight he was going to get comfortably blitzed and burn all these stupid pictures in the handy-dandy fireplace.

He looked again at the phone in his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose with the fingers of the other. Elena wasn't the person he needed to speak to right now. Stefan was. Of course he didn't _want_ to talk to Stefan either but when did that ever matter? He hit the speed dial to call Stefan sort of hoping he'd wake his brother up – after all it was almost midnight and surely Stefan would want to be in bed before he turned into a pumpkin?

He ended up with Stefan's voicemail and he growled, only just barely resisting the impulse to hurl the damn phone across the room. "Stop being a pissy little emo-bitch and answer your damn phone Stefan." He snapped figuring the time for calm and rational argument was well and truly passed between them. "This isn't about Katherine anymore. We have a situation and if you don't want a pitchfork waving mob on your ass you'd better call me ASAP."

Damon threw his phone down onto the coffee table where it landed on top of the spread of photographs with a bounce and clatter. He stared at it for a long moment before he downed half the contents of his bottle of bourbon in one impossible-for-a-human swallow. There just wasn't enough booze in the world to make all _this_ worth the effort and Damon was seriously beginning to question why he bothered.


	4. Chapter Three: Stalking horses

_A/N: Sorry for the delay in completing this chapter. The last four episodes of TVD season Two kind of did a number on the plot of this story. In some ways me and the writers had a lot of the same ideas about certain characters and in others they've really inconvenienced me in writing this story, so I've had to rework some of the plot to fit! Also, obviously, this story is now even more AU than it was before Season Two wrapped (RIP Jenna). This chapter isn't my best writing but I hope to get back into the swing of things with the next one. ;)_

* * *

><p>Chapter Three: <em>Stalking horses<em>

"…call me ASAP." Stefan hit the button to cut dead the voicemail message and sighed. He had no idea what Damon was talking about but he knew he didn't have any intention of calling him back anytime soon. He turned his cell phone off and walked across to the window of the small apartment he rented close to campus. It was still early, only a few minutes past six in the morning but already it looked like it would be a fine summer's day. Unfortunately Stefan's mood did not reflect the bright and cheery blue sky. This was only partly because of his brother. For once Stefan's biggest concern wasn't worry over whatever new mess Damon had made out of his life.

The life he was worried about this morning belonged to someone else entirely.

As if on cue the door to the bathroom opened and his guest stepped out, a pale green towel draped over her shoulders as the ends of her dark hair dripped. Stefan turned from the window to offer up a faint wry smile.

"Feel better?"

Meredith smiled slightly self-conscious and slightly wryly in turn. "Some." She swiftly rubbed dry her hair with the towel. "Thank you for letting me stay last night; I'm sorry for all this…I just…"

"It's fine." Stefan said, meaning it. Meredith had become a friend to him. They shared a lot of the same interests and she was surprisingly easy to talk to. So when she'd arrived at his front door after midnight last night, clearly distressed he hadn't hesitated to let her stay when she'd asked. "Are you ready to tell me what's really going on now?"

Meredith sighed, tugging nervously on the edge of the towel as she moved over to sink into his battered couch. "I'm probably overreacting." She admitted. "It's just that I'd really hoped to never see Alessandro again. Him calling me last night – especially when he shouldn't even have my number – it spooked me." Meredith looked up at him seeming to cave in on herself as she sat in his borrowed dressing gown on his lumpy couch. "I didn't feel safe staying at my house."

"Alessandro –this is the guy you told me about, right?" Stefan moved over to the small kitchenette alcove and poured them both black coffee from the steeping carafe. He took Meredith her mug and then perched on the arm of his mismatched armchair. "The guy who got involved in some sort of cult interested in the supernatural?"

"And used me as his personal punching bag," Meredith nodded. "I never thought he'd come here. Honestly. I didn't think he'd care enough to hunt me down. But he has."

Stefan nodded, pursing his lips. "Are you sure it was a good idea leaving last night? Alessandro's clearly dangerous. Would he hurt other people to get to you?" He was thinking of Elena when he asked this. She shared a house with Meredith and another girl and Stefan didn't like the idea of her being in danger, even indirectly. Elena was very capable of protecting herself, far more so than most other girls her age, but she would have no idea that she even needed to be wary let alone on the lookout for her housemate's potentially dangerous abusive ex.

"No." Meredith said emphatically, her next words proving just how well she could read him. "I promise you Stefan if I'd thought he would do anything to hurt Elena or Claire I wouldn't have left the house. Alessandro's here for me and only me."

However something in the furtive flicker of Meredith's usually forthright gaze tipped Stefan off to what she wasn't saying.

"You think he might have followed you here?" Stefan frowned. "Did _you_ see him after he called you…maybe when you were leaving your house?"

Meredith's eyes snapped to his, widening in surprise as a faint blush bronzed her cheeks even more. She nodded once in jerky assent. "I can't believe he knows what you are…but if he comes here, well, you can deal with him better than my housemates."

"So you lead him here –to me." Stefan almost smiled although he did note how willing Meredith was to throw her ex – no matter how abusive –to the metaphorical wolves. Meredith was a good person with a strong sense of personal honour, much like Elena, but like Elena there was steel beneath her surface. Knowing something of Meredith's background Stefan figured there had to be. All the same what she had done, leading her ex-boyfriend to him, and what she had implied about her reasoning did worry him.

"So Alessandro knows about vampires then, just like you do?" He asked faux-casual and glanced down self-consciously at his lapis lazuli ring, flexing his fingers.

When Meredith had first confronted him out of the blue about his true nature the whole encounter had been so reminiscent of the time Elena found out about him that Stefan had been too stunned to deny it, or attempt to compel Meredith to forget what she'd learned. Meredith however, unlike Elena, had not shown any fear of him, not even when he admitted he really was a vampire. It was then that she had told him about the supernatural seeking cult she used to be involved with.

"The Seekers are well aware that vampires exist, among other things." Meredith confirmed, once again responding to his thoughts as much as his words. "It was Alessandro and other members of the group who taught me to recognise the signs that tipped me off about you. But there are things I don't think they know." She smiled suddenly a bright flash of strong teeth. "Like the fact that there are vampires in the world who hate to cause harm and don't prey on people – like you Stefan. Meeting you has only confirmed to me that what Alessandro and the Seekers do is wrong."

Stefan nodded, barely reacting to either the smile or her words. From what Meredith had told him about Alessandro and his fellow 'seekers' they made the Founders Council of Mystic Falls seem conservative and understanding in their approach to vampires. The Seekers, like a lot of cults and radical groups, seemed more interested in encouraging mindless hatred than in truly protecting themselves and others from the genuine monsters out there. They were bigots of a different stripe than most, but bigots all the same.

"Do you think he's brought more of his 'friends' with him?" He asked grimly; wondering if Alessandro's sudden return to Meredith's life was part of something darker than just a bad boyfriend returned to haunt an innocent girl.

Meredith stared up at him from the couch with grave eyes. "I don't know Stefan. I hope not, truly, for all our sakes."

* * *

><p>Damon Salvatore woke up to a new day, a hangover and the teeth-grinding clatter of a pneumatic drill. Snapping open bleary eyes he lurched out of bed and over to his large windows, twitching the curtains aside to glower down at the construction crew gathered around outside ready to screw up his carefully formulated plans for the renovation of the boarding house, just like they had been doing for the last thirteen months. Briefly Damon entertained the idea of deadening his hangover with a spot of therapeutic neck-snapping, but considering the trouble one rash killing had already caused him he restrained himself.<p>

After a quick shower he downed his power breakfast of stale refrigerated blood and a generous snifter of bourbon before pondering what to do on this fine day. He could call Elena, but frankly he was no more looking forward to having the 'random murder is wrong, bad doggy' conversation with her now than he had been last night. Alternatively he could drive to Stefan's student fleapit and rip the damn door off the hinges before dragging his brother out by his ankles so they could have a damn conversation, but some weird, uncharacteristic impulse towards level-headedness made him hang fire. One hundred years of experience had shown him that yelling and pounding his brother's head into convenient walls never did any good in the long run. He'd let Stefan sulk a little longer and then, if necessary, he'd sic Elena on his brother for the good old doe-eyed guilt trip.

Of course now he knew what he wasn't going to be doing he still had to figure out something he could do. Something at least marginally constructive, he needed to work off some of his irritation and for once getting sloshed before noon didn't appeal.

So, after a brief moment where he actually thought about doing his taxes (because yeah, the old adage about death and taxes had a lot of truth to it – in fact he was unliving proof that even the dead couldn't escape ponying up the green to the government), Damon decided to do the one thing that was guaranteed to improve his mood that didn't require a cheerfully naked bed partner...gardening.

Damon still remembered Elena's face the first time she'd caught him fussing over the artichoke flowers. The only thing that had mitigated the embarrassment of being caught indulging in his horticultural urges had been the fact that Elena had insisted on helping him finish digging up the vegetable patch ready for planting, and, courtesy of the plunging neckline of her form fitting t-shirt, Damon had been afforded a very nice view of her breasts nestled in her white lace bra every time she bent over the shovel.

After that he hadn't worried so much about his green-fingers ruining his hard won reputation as a card carrying psychotic maniac. In fact weirdly enough the news that he liked to garden had increased in his stock with Elena to a far greater extent than all his attempts to save her and her spunky little gang of friends put together. The day he'd brought over the best of the home grown strawberries to the Gilbert residence Elena had all but swooned at his feet, and Damon remained convinced that the only reason Elena hadn't broken her own 'just friends/enforced chastity' rule right then and there had been because her aunt and brother were in attendance. He didn't pretend to understand the reason for this he just made damn sure the strawberry patch remained protected from frost and aphids.

Heading out to the sprawling back yard Damon just hoped that he'd have enough time to work off some of his annoyance before something new happened to piss him off.

* * *

><p>Elena drove slowly up to the Salvatore house to find the driveway clogged with construction trucks and a cement mixer. Men in hard hats loitered around one of the parked vehicles quite obviously not working while pretending to be deep in conversation as they studied a blueprint. Elena rolled her eyes as she parked up and got out of the car.<p>

It had been Damon's idea not just to repair the boarding house after it suffered damage last year when a dead witch and her horde of zombies came to town, but to fully renovate the property instead. At the time Elena had thought it was a good idea. Now, a year and change since the 'project' had begun the work still wasn't finished and Elena's patience was wearing thin. The leering looks the workers gave her as she walked up to the front door really didn't help either.

"Damon?" She called as she closed the door behind her.

There was no immediate answer so Elena walked into the refurbished parlour, now a glorious reservoir of sunlight thanks to the brand new windows and venetian blinds. Dumping her weekend bag onto the new couch (rich brown leather and huge enough to seat a half dozen comfortably) Elena paused for a moment to take in her surroundings. In the far corner Damon's pride and joy, the purpose built massive oak panelled and chrome edged private bar, caught her attention. She checked the contents, noted a mostly empty bottle of bourbon sitting on the countertop and considered where Damon might be. Then she headed immediately for the back door leading out to the expansive gardens.

Elena had never given the boarding house gardens much thought until recently, when a swerve towards non-homicidal living had forced Damon to turn all his restless energy to more constructive pursuits than getting drunk and looking for trouble. Of all the things Elena might have hoped Damon would do with his time gardening hadn't really been anywhere on her list, but she couldn't deny that the results were impressive.

Walking down the steps from the back patio Elena felt a little like Alice stepping into a gorgeous wonderland of riotous colours, and natural perfumes better than anything she could ever hope to buy in a bottle. Bamboo arches trailed hollyhocks and snapdragon flowers as she walked down an unpaved path through sweet smelling wild roses and the glorious petalled faces of flowers whose names she didn't know. There was no rhyme or reason to the placement of the sapling trees, blooming bushes or herbs, but somehow the artful chaos came together perfectly. There was something so quintessentially Damon about it all too. Messy, yet captivating, in parts the garden was wild as a jungle and in others, the raised beds and serried furrows for growing fruit and root vegetables had a near regimental order to them. The contrast and juxtaposition was insane and dizzying, yet, somehow, taken as a whole it all just seemed to work.

She found Damon wielding a pair of huge shears on a yellow leaved bush like a man who knew his way around potentially lethal bladed objects, which he kind of did. The sun was still rising in the sky and noon was still hours away but already the day was working towards scorching. Fat honey bees and the occasional butterfly zipped through the air as Damon hacked off errant branches from the vaguely rounded bush and, more to the point, deliberately ignored her. Elena sighed and moved over to a nearby marble bench seat to wait him out.

After another minute where she stared holes into his back Damon finally decided to acknowledge her. "It doesn't matter how much you pout Elena, your judgy eyes can't kill me." He turned around, smirking and slung the shears over his shoulder before giving her a look of mock concern. "Shouldn't you be at school matriculating or hazing or whatever it is you crazy college girls do these days?"

Elena sighed and steeled herself for a difficult conversation. "It's Saturday Damon. And the semester's mostly over anyway." She stood from the bench and walked over to him.

Despite his faint, mocking smirk Damon was practically vibrating with tension. It put Elena in mind of a dog with his hackles up. Elena knew the signs well enough; Damon was on edge and defensive. She tilted her head, the sun slanting between them causing her to see dancing yellowish brown spots across her eyes as she looked him square in the eye.

"Jenna called me."

"What's your point?" Damon tossed his head and looked away from her, which was a better acknowledgement of guilt than any words. She watched his throat convulse in a tight swallow as he pulled the shears from his shoulder and irritably pulled a twig from between the blades. His jaw was taut with tension and the muscles of his neck corded sharply. It had been months, almost an entire year, since she'd last seen Damon in this state.

Elena bit back her annoyance and yanked the garden implement from Damon's hand threw it down onto the ground before stepping forward to loosely hug Damon around the waist, tucking her head into his shoulder in her favourite position. He was tense as steel cable against her. She sighed.

"I'm not here to fight." She told him honestly. "Believe it or not I am _worried _about you. Ric said he thought someone was setting you up. Is it true?"

"That's it?" Damon pulled away from her, eyes full of suspicion and a weird, perverse sort of anger as if he was _disappointed_ she wasn't here to lecture him. "I'm shocked Elena. Shouldn't you be bitching at me about killing some random moron on my front lawn?" Damon cocked his head and smirked clearly determined to be an asshole right now. "Better watch out – I think your halo is slipping. Must be all the homicidal maniacs you hang out with."

"Stop it." Elena snapped determined not to let him manipulate her into a fight. "I'm not going to get into a stupid argument with you, so just stop it." She turned away from him. "I'm going to my room. When you want to talk like a reasonable person that's where I'll be."

Without waiting for him to respond Elena continued to walk away. Confronting and pushing Damon when he was like this was just foolish. Elena had made that mistake before. Damon was defensive and angry right now. He was expecting chastisement and punishment and he might even be feeling guilty for what he'd done. Damon didn't always handle guilt or disappointment very well and Elena wasn't about to fall into that emotional sinkhole. She'd learned that walking away and waiting for Damon to come to her once he'd calmed down was the very best way to diffuse the situation.

All the same she was surprised that it took Damon until her hand was on the handle of the patio doors before he zipped up beside her and blocked her route back into the house. He reached out to lightly clasp her elbows, placing himself firmly in front of the doors.

"I never talk like a reasonable person." He groused mulishly, pouting ridiculously. "I'd have to be reasonable to do that...and we both know reason and I agreed to see other people a loooooonnng time ago."

Elena rolled her eyes, silently accepting the weak joke as the apology it was meant to be. She relaxed her stance to let Damon know she wasn't going to leave and he let go of her arms and stepped away from the doors to let her know that he wouldn't stop her if she chose to go. Elena smiled faintly. So much of their odd relationship was a bizarre dance of touch, gesture, and words that meant more than what they said. It was a waltz or a two-step, where one of them took ground only so the other could give it away and then they switched positions. It could be exhausting but strangely empowering at the same time.

"Ric said the man you killed was a paranormal investigator, and that he might have known you were a vampire." Elena said when what she meant was: _give me a good reason for why you killed that man and I'll accept it_. She looked at Damon keenly. "He said that this man had been stalking you and Stefan."

"Ric should learn to keep his mouth shut," Damon muttered looking away from her and out towards his masterpiece of landscaping. Elena felt herself sag a little. She'd more or less handed Damon a foolproof excuse for what he'd done that she would accept and he wasn't using it.

She wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to let her worry show. "Is he right?"

"What do you want me to say, Elena?" Damon asked tiredly taking her arms and gently unfolding them before clasping her hands against his heart, fingers running over her knuckles distractedly. "I killed a threat to me and Stefan; turns out maybe that wasn't such a great move. But it's done. He's dead and it's not like I can bring him back, even if I wanted to."

Elena nodded, releasing a breath that wasn't exactly a sigh. This was the confirmation she wanted but he was right it really was a hollow assurance. "What do you mean that it wasn't such a great move? Has something else happened?" She asked.

Damon was still more interested in playing with her hands than meeting her eyes, but he looked up briefly and his expression twisted into a disgusted grimace. "Someone broke in last night while I was out dumping Edgley's body. They left me some happy-snaps." Damon rolled his eyes. "I burned them."

"Happy-snaps?" Elena had tensed as soon as Damon had mentioned a break-in, her eyes instinctively shooting around the patio as if she expected someone or something to leap out and attack them.

Damon rolled his eyes, uncurling her fingers and smoothing her palms out, "Relax. It's nothing. Someone wants me to know they're watching me but they don't have the balls to make an actual move."

Elena shook her head, exasperated with Damon. "You're being blackmailed?"

"Nope," Damon flashed her a sharp smile. "I'm being paparazzied; guess my incredible animal magnetism and dynamic good looks really are a double-edged sword."

Despite herself Elena only just managed to swallow back a sputtered laugh, especially when Damon gave her an exaggerated leer coupled with his patented eye-thing. She shook her head resignedly. "What do they want Damon, seriously?"

"No idea," He shrugged, holding open the patio door so she could precede him back into the house.

Elena blinked sunlight afterimages from her eyes, adjusting to the relative gloom of the kitchen. "They must want something." Another thought occurred to her. "Do you think the person who broke in has a connection to the paranormal investigator?"

"I know they do." Damon walked over to the fridge and poured a glass of orange juice for her.

Elena took the glass without really thinking about it. "Then what...?" She began but Damon cut her off.

"Look Elena. I don't know what my new secret stalker wants. They haven't exactly introduced themselves. I just know that Edgley was a stalking horse. Someone sent the guy to me, probably to see if I'd kill him." Damon looked at her seriously leaning against the kitchen island. "I've been around a long time. This isn't the first time this has happened to me, and I get that you don't like it, but killing Edgley was the only way to go. If I hadn't he would have stuck around to cause trouble for all of us, digging up dirt going way back to Klaus and the rest. This way whoever was pulling Edgley's strings gets to play psychological warfare 101 with me but has jack shit on the rest of you."

Elena blinked more startled than she wanted to admit by Damon's admission. Elena could appreciate Damon's protective impulses but the way he went about protecting the people he cared about...well, Elena actually hoped she never understood the logic of leaving bodies on the ground.

"Did you know this would happen? Did you know Edgley wasn't alone when you killed him?"

"I didn't _know_ anything," Damon threw up his hands. "I'm a vampire Elena. This sort of stuff is normal to me. It's not a big deal."

Elena did her best to ignore everything Damon had just implied with that last statement and focused on the immediate problem. "What will you do when this other person comes forward?" She asked already suspecting she knew the answer. "They won't stay hidden forever." She added speaking from bitter experience.

"I'll kill them and everyone else involved in their little scam." Damon gave her a bored look, as if to say she really ought to know better than to ask stupid questions.

Elena jerked her head up, "You can't just kill them."

"Sure I can." Damon said simply and then moved around the kitchen island to where she was perched on one of the high stools. He reached out to stroke her cheek lightly with his knuckles, expression solemn and ominously remote.

"I can play nice Elena," he said softly. "But the rest of the world _won't_. I'm not Stefan. People screw with me? I'm not wasting my time negotiating. When I find out who is doing this? I'm going to kill them. It's just that simple."

He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek before passing by to the patio doors. "I don't expect you to be okay with this. It doesn't matter anyway." He winked at her over his shoulder before making snide reference to one of the biggest disagreements they'd ever had. "My life, my stalker, my choice; you know how it goes."

He sauntered out of the house into the sunlight, leaving Elena with a serious problem. Did she help Damon – or did she do everything she could to stop him?


	5. Chapter Four: A bad case of the Ex

_Chapter four: A bad case of the Ex_

Dramatic exits were all well and good, Damon decided five seconds after stalking out onto the patio, but the problem was what to do after. Elena was still in the kitchen, pouting holes in his back through the glass fronted French doors and Damon felt his shoulders tense in response, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

Elena didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. Damon knew that already of course, and he didn't even blame her, but that didn't mean he had to like it. In fact it pissed him off. Yeah okay, he'd screwed up in the past, yes, he'd been a little too quick to crack out the serial homicide and his tendency to heart rip first ask questions later had backfired on all their asses in times gone by, but damn it. He'd been right some of the time too; he'd been right about Mason and he'd been right about Elijah – and he'd taken action when certain other people - who will remain nameless – sat back and did nothing while everything went to crap around their ears. Damon didn't truly care if he was blamed for every mistake and every failed offensive. It came with the territory. All the same would it kill Elena to at least acknowledge the possibility that the one hundred and fifty-one extra years of experience he had on her did give him an edge when it came to diabolical schemes?

"Hey, Mr Salvatore?" One of the building crew workers turned the corner of the house, waving to him. Damon had heard the man before he appeared and watched him approach without expression. Damon didn't know the man's name, and more to the point didn't care, but he hoped for the poor slob's sake that the man wasn't coming to tell him the roofing tiles were delayed again. He was in the mood to kill the messenger right now.

"Motor cycle courier brought this for you," The man held up a large manila envelope in one brick dust grimed hand. "Kinda weird though. Didn't ask for a signature and tore out of here like a shot." The man continued brow stitching together in confusion and curiosity. Damon frowned. The envelope had no postage stamp, no address written on it. He groaned.

"Damn it not again." He snatched up the envelope and fixed the construction worker with a hard stare.

"Get back to work." He compelled the man. "And for the record, there is nothing even remotely interesting about this envelope."

"…yeah," the man nodded dreamily. "It's just an envelope, right?"

"Go." Damon snapped, turning away from the man and slitting the envelope with a finger. He didn't bother to watch the minion scuttle away. Instead he peered inside the envelope, noted another sheath of glossy printed photographs and tipped them out into his hands.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Damon stared down at the first photograph in his hands, jaw locking and teeth beginning to grind as his lips twisted into a sneer. Seriously this was too much. As if he didn't have enough problems to deal with.

The first photograph in the set was another shot of Stefan. The back drop appeared to be some fancy wine bar and his brother sat at a small table for two, a candle in a bottle as a centrepiece, sitting forward in his chair, caught in the middle of some kind of deep, involved conversation with the woman seated opposite him. The lovely brunette had swept her long, curling hair up in a half-updo and reclined in her chair in just the right pose to accentuate her pushed up cleavage. There was an almost sly half-smirk teasing the corner of her sweet little mouth. Flicking through the rest of the images Damon saw that they were all shots of Stefan and his 'date'.

He closed his eyes and tried to rein in his natural instinct to murder something. "Stefan you moron," He hissed on a rough exhale. "You just had to do it, didn't you?"

"Damon?"

The patio doors opened behind him and Elena trotted up, moving to his side to peer at the photographs. Damon didn't bother to hide them from her. What was the point? He took a perverse sort of solace in the way Elena's eyes bulged in shock and her lips thinned in distaste as she recognised the woman in the pictures.

"Katherine."

* * *

><p>"I'd feel better if you let me come with you," Stefan said again as he watched Meredith settle her rucksack over her back and flip her dark hair past her shoulders. "You came here for shelter from Alessandro. Going home alone doesn't make sense."<p>

Meredith hesitated by his front door. "You're right." She admitted looking down at her cheap sneakers. "It doesn't."

"I'm not trying to make you feel helpless." Stefan offered up a crooked smile. "I just want to help."

"I know." Meredith replied soft as a breath as she curled the fingers of one hand around the strap of her rucksack. She looked up at him with steady, yet inscrutable dark eyes. "You're a good man Stefan."

"I try to be," Stefan studied Meredith keenly. Her behaviour had been odd all morning. At first he'd written off her furtiveness as a symptom of her worry about Alessandro, but when she'd suddenly decided that she wanted to go home – alone – after making it very clear beforehand that she feared her ex-boyfriend and his fellow gang members Stefan's suspicions were raised even more.

"Let's go," Moving swiftly he opened the door to his apartment. Meredith stared at him with large, solemn eyes. He stepped out onto the landing, moving along the narrow lino covered hallway to the concrete stairway, which always reeked of greasy Chinese takeout and old urine.

"Stefan wait," Meredith lingered in his open doorway, taking a half-step out into the hallway as Stefan paused at the top of the stairs. "Alessandro…he…"

"Contacted you and told you to leave or he'd try and hurt me, right?" Stefan finished for her, nodding when Meredith's eyes widened and her lips pursed into a thin line, confirming his suspicions. He walked back up the steps to her and lightly rested his hands on her shoulders.

"You know I'm harder to kill than a human. I can take care of myself."

Meredith shook her head, stubborn and worried. "You don't know Alessandro. He's crazy. Maybe he can't kill you but that doesn't mean he won't try – and he could hurt innocent people. Are you prepared to take that risk Stefan; because I'm not."

Stefan half smiled. Meredith sounded so much like Elena it was almost funny. "Then we'll steer clear of public places. If he wants a fight I'll deal with it. I can disarm a human pretty fast."

Meredith stared at him long and hard and nodded once in sharp assent. "He'll fight. Believe me. Violence is the only thing Alessandro understands."

Stefan lifted his shoulder in a casual half-shrug, "I can work with that."

"Alright," Meredith strode past him, shoulder back and head held high and started down the stairs at a brisk trot. "I just hope you don't regret this Stefan."

* * *

><p>"That's Katherine. And she's with Stefan...On a <em>date<em>?"

Elena snatched the entire set of photos from Damon, envelope and all and rifled through the pictures in quick succession, following the progress of the meal through entrée to dessert. One of the pictures caught Katherine in the process of trying to tempt Stefan with a forkful of Tiramisu. Elena looked equal flavours appalled, angry and hurt. Damon tried to ignore the hurt. He was already a hairsbreadth from a spate of unfortunate neck-snappings as it was. He didn't need to start entertaining his lingering Elena/Stefan insecurities as well.

"Where did you get these pictures?" Elena demanded cheeks flushed with anger before her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "And why aren't you surprised to see Stefan with Katherine?"

"Sheath the claws kitten." He rolled his eyes. "The pictures just arrived courtesy of our mystery stalker."

"You didn't tell me Katherine was involved." Elena was still staring at the glossy blow-ups as if glaring hard enough would change the nature of the images caught forever in perpetuity. Her tone alone told him she was preparing to blame him for this new spanner in the works.

"Okay, here's the deal," he told her shortly, figuring the last thing either of them needed to do right now was fight about _Katherine_ of all people. "One, I didn't _know_ Stefan was going on dinner dates with Katherine – so I couldn't know she was involved, if she is. Two, are you kidding me? What do you want; a roll-call of every single possible suspect in this little game of conspiracy?" He swiped the pictures from Elena's hand and shoved them roughly back into the envelope. "I'm a popular guy. I've pissed off a lot of people in the last century. Just about _anyone_ could be behind this."

"Fine," Elena folded her arms across her chest, her face falling into the familiar lines of what Damon had come to recognise as her default expression when the shit hit the fan and she wasn't sure which way to jump, to fury or to tears. "You say you didn't know Stefan had met with Katherine, okay I believe you…but you don't act surprised that he's in contact with her. Explain that to me."

Damon bit back the urge to groan and dearly wished Elena was a little less adept at reading him, or, conversely, that he was better at lying to her. Because honestly, right now, he so did not have the time or inclination to start breaking down the steaming heap of crap that was the 'Katherine situation' with Elena. Hell Stefan had cut off all communication with him because of their mutual ex already. He didn't want a repeat performance of the same argument with Elena.

"You're right I'm not surprised." He admitted figuring that he might as well bite the metaphoric bullet. "I knew Stefan was looking for Katherine. I just didn't know he'd _found_ her." He gave Elena a hard look, eyes flaring wide. "Are we done with the Katherine-angst – can we deal with the paparazzi stalker issue now? Because unless it's escaped your notice, our friendly neighbourhood voyeur is probably watching the house right now, if he's not off following my brother around cheap wine bars."

"Why?" Elena stared at him like he'd told her Stefan had gone on a carnivorous rampage (again) and it was clear that no, she was not ready to resume normal operations just yet. "Why would he go looking for _her_?" Utter disgust tripped from Elena's usually sweet dulcet tones.

"I don't know, and I don't care." He snapped untruthfully, well aware of the irony of that statement, especially considering his main vocation of the last hundred and forty-odd years had been all about Katherine. "I lost interest in trying to figure out my brother's idiocy years ago. All I care about is figuring out what these mean," he shook the sheath of photographic prints for emphasis. "Stefan wants to plough old furrows and take a joy ride down tramp lane, so what? It's his funeral."

He turned to go back inside, mind already ticking over possibilities while simultaneously attempting to put the jagged and mismatched pieces of the puzzle together. Elena caught his arm, fingers curling firmly around his bicep.

"You do know." She insisted her dark eyes boring into him as if she was the one with the ability to compel him to truthfulness. "You and Stefan have been fighting for weeks." Her eyes widened in understanding. "You've been fighting about Katherine haven't you?"

Damon looked down at her for a long moment. He was acutely aware of the warmth of Elena's hand on his arm, how tightly she was holding him and how intently she looked up at him. She expected him to tell her the truth. She expected him to tell her everything she wanted to know just because she wanted to know. But that was the thing. She didn't trust him…and he didn't trust her either.

"I'm not my brother's keeper Elena," he said quietly. "You want to know what Stefan wants with Katherine? Ask him yourself."

* * *

><p>Meredith pulled into the driveway of the house she shared with Elena and killed the engine. The drive from his apartment had been uneventful and the quiet residential street seemed empty. Stefan sighed and released his seatbelt. Meredith tapped her short nails on the steering wheel, staring dead ahead.<p>

"I hate this." She said with feeling. "I feel like prey. Like a mouse under a dresser while the cat sits right outside, grinning at me."

"He wants you to feel that way. It's all part of the game."

Stefan opened his car door and stepped out of the car in full view of anyone lurking in the shadows of convenient shrubbery watching. He strained his senses but couldn't detect anything unusual. No nearby heartbeats, no one hiding on the floor of a seemingly parked car. The only sounds were the normal, everyday background melody of suburbia. A sprinkler four houses down sputtered rhythmically, a dog barked in a backyard and the faint tinny echoes of a handful of TVs floated through open windows. Stefan relaxed marginally. A moment later Meredith pushed open her door and stepped out of her car. Her shoulders were hunched and her eyes cut from side to side, darting and panicked, showing too much white.

"Go inside." Stefan nodded to the front door. "I'll check out back."

"I can do that…" Meredith began, a bit of fire returning to her as she immediately formed her lips into the shape of a further argument. Stefan held up his hand to forestall her.

"Think of me as a guard dog. It was a smart play to use me as shield, let me do this." He gave her a crookedly smile and shrug. "If Alessandro attacks then I'll draw his fire while you take him out."

"I suppose if I've got willing cannon fodder I might as well use you." Meredith managed a faint smirk. "Just so you, the feminist in me views you purely as strategy, and allowing you to take the proactive approach in no way constitutes weakness on my part." She darted towards her front door.

"Of course not," Stefan agreed sincerely and smiled as Meredith disappeared inside the house.

He then walked around the house to the backyard. He'd last been here six weeks ago for a barbeque, the first of the summer. It had been a happy occasion, Elena had press ganged him into handling the grill and things had been good. If he remembered correctly Elena had invited Damon but he'd begged off the visit, in many ways his absence had contributed to the relaxed and easy going atmosphere.

They'd had the barbeque the weekend after Stefan had first mentioned to Damon that he wanted to seek out Katherine. Unsurprisingly, that conversation had sunk into all out acrimony faster than the Titanic, after the iceberg hit. Stefan had really hoped Damon, of all people, would understand why he needed answers, and why it was only now that he felt able to ask those same haunting questions. His brother hadn't been willing to listen however; wasn't even prepared to discuss the matter reasonably. Stefan was still angry about that. After everything they'd been through Damon's high-handed stubbornness infuriated Stefan all the more. Honestly Damon was so like their father sometimes it was almost laughable. His brother was getting worse too. Stefan didn't understand why, but with every leap and bound Damon took to reclaim his old humanity he seemed to become even more intractable. Then again Damon had never been very good at compromise.

Pausing by the grill and shaking his brooding thoughts away so he could focus on the moment, Stefan's eyes glanced over the patio furniture swiftly as he checked out the yard. He already knew no one was hiding out in the small yard or in any of the neighbours' yards, but he made the point of searching anyway mostly to reassure Meredith who was watching him search from the kitchen window.

"It's all just a ploy, isn't it?" She asked him as she let him through the patio door into the kitchen. "He's just doing this so he can watch me squirm."

"Probably," Stefan admitted, looking around the small kitchen. No one else was home right now. The third housemate Claire was spending the weekend at her boyfriend's and Elena…well Stefan wasn't sure where she was but he knew the house was empty. Meredith made tea while she talked.

"I should know better than to fall for it. I _do _know better. It's just that…"

"It doesn't matter," Stefan finished for her accepting a cup and saucer gratefully. "It's like horror movie tropes and things that go bump in the night. You can rationalise away fear as much as you like, but in the end humans are animals just like any other mammal; those fight or flight instincts are there for a reason. It's never a good idea to ignore them."

"And you would know," Meredith smiled to soften the bite of her words and sipped from her cup. Stefan took her seriously all the same.

"In some ways its worse for vampires," he admitted candidly. "Instinctually we're wired differently from humans; we are from the minute we turn. We become predators and those instincts…you can't understand how strong they are until you experience them. But the fear reflex, it doesn't go away just because you're top of the food chain." Stefan looked down into the depths of his tea cup. "It gets worse. Being a vampire, living with those instincts, it's like living with a constant hit of adrenaline surging inside you; every little thing, an odd look, a shadow out of place, becomes a potential new threat in your territory." He shook his head almost as if he could banish the feelings he himself had brought to the fore. "You're constantly on guard, constantly paranoid about something or someone, and eventually you have to make the choice to either shut down those instincts, or you give in to them, and then _everything_ is a threat and the only answer is killing."

"What choice did you make?" Meredith asked him softly as she leant against the kitchen counter cradling her cup of tea, her eyes fixed on him keenly fascinated, the budding anthropologist obvious in her avid interest.

Stefan opened his mouth, and was about to answer: 'the human choice' when he heard something, a sound he couldn't define except in terms of danger. He was in motion even before the glass of the kitchen window exploded inward in a million biting shards.

What happened next occurred in a series of interconnected fractured microseconds. Stefan's hyper senses recorded every detail even as he reacted purely on instinct. He saw Meredith's face morphing in horror, felt a burning streak of pain searing his insides as he vaulted over the kitchen island and knocked Meredith to the ground –and above all he could literally taste the maddening scent of blood heavy on his tongue.

On the tiled kitchen floor, Stefan shielded Meredith's body as a hail of gunfire peppered the kitchen; bullets tore holes in kitchen cabinets and ricocheted off the sink faucet for a roaring handful of seconds that seemed intolerably long. More than one bullet hit Stefan and he gritted his teeth against the cordite burn of hot metal passing through his flesh and tried to make sure Meredith was protected not just by his body but by the bulk of the kitchen island as well.

Finally it was over and Stefan leapt up, instinct screaming at him to give chase to the gunman fleeing over the fence, but the rich, redolent scent of human blood stopped him. He looked down at Meredith lying on the kitchen floor, her dark hair splayed out across the pale terracotta tiles like dark fronds of seaweed, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing on airless gasps as a steady flood of blood poured from an open wound in her neck.

"Meredith!"

Stefan's eyes darted from her to the splatter of blood rising in an arcing fan over the kitchen cabinets she had been leaning against just moments earlier, even as his fingers touched the already healed exit wound in his upper left shoulder. Oh sweet god no – the bullets, ordinary lead and not wood - had passed straight through his vampire flesh, barely damaging him, before finding a home in Meredith. Instead of protecting her, he'd pretty much guaranteed each shot meant for him hit her instead. Dropping to his knees Stefan's jeans legs immediately soaked in hot crimson. Meredith was bleeding out rapidly - mostly from her neck where the bullet had clipped her just deep enough to open the artery. She'd be dead in ninety seconds or less. She'd was dying - and it was his fault.

He'd already ripped open the flesh of his wrist with his teeth before he'd even made the conscious decision to do so and soon his own blood was seeping down Meredith's throat.

"I'm sorry," he whispered around fangs drawn down by the intoxicating stink of her blood. He started combing her blood soaked hair with the fingers of his free hand even as he kept his other wrist pressed firmly to her mouth. "I'm so, so sorry."


End file.
